City officials look to merge building codes

October 3, 2013

In an effort to assist Wapakoneta’s code enforcement officer and to help area residents, Wapakoneta elected officials intend to make the city’s property maintenance code reflect the building code in an attempt to make the rules more consistent.

Wapakoneta City Council Lands and Buildings Committee members met Wednesday with the city’s Code Enforcement Officer Paul Eisert to discuss current cases including the process of warning and citing property owners and in what ways committee members and councilors could help.

Wapakoneta 2nd Ward Councilor Dan Lee, who is the Lands and Buildings Committee chair, said the two city codes can conflict and Eisert said to reduce costs to the city it would help if the duties of the code enforcement officer were clarified and expanded.

“I think it was good that he did his homework on the property maintenance code and the building code and we are going to look at making those more similar especially in regard to enforcing the code,” Lee told the Wapakoneta Daily News. “We are going to look at the codes and see if we can make them more similar so it will be easier for him to do his job so that compliance can be made by the public.”

For more on efforts to have the building code and property maintenance code be more consistent see Thursday's edition of the Wapakoneta Daily News.